Why Customer-Centric Companies Should Chase More Than One Holy Grail

The quest for the customer-centric grail

At the beginning of February I wrote about the power of emotional loyalty and how engaging I found it to hear 50 leading loyalty marketeers give their different standpoints on the topic.

For example, when I asked whether emotional loyalty is the Holy Grail in my last post, someone like Mark Thomas (Hilton Worldwide’s Director of Brand Marketing) may agree with me. In fact, he said as much when we interviewed him for our Little Book of Loyalty.

However, someone like Alex Chruszcz of Asda, may extol the virtues of “keeping it simple”. Or Harper Reed (former CTO of Obama For America), might suggest that using tools like micro-targeting to engage your customers socially is the answer.

My point is, all three of these practitioners are chasing that same Holy Grail of building truly customer-centric enterprises, but all have different, unique, and equally useful perspectives. There’s not one Holy Grail, but many. We can learn something from each of them and I’d suggest it an incredibly useful exercise for any customer centric marketer to place themselves in the shoes of their peers from different sectors.

With this in mind, I thought it worth sharing the updated Little Book of Loyalty with you. See what new perspectives some of the below pioneers bring to your thinking around creating customer centric companies:

You know what else gets me about this list? Not just how diverse the sectors are, but also how diverse the job titles.

I rounded off my last post by commending the sort of closed-door networking events that bring all these diverse, forward thinking, marketeers together. I have to confess I had a small hand it helping put that particular event together. I also run a series of similarly-styled “meet ups” myself in relation to Europe’s Customer Festival.

If the above post has grabbed your attention, then I’d like to invite you to join the next one I’m hosting on the 18th March at the Fable in Holborn, London.

I’m afraid as it’s a closed door affair, we only have limited passes, and only open the doors to brand owners, retailers, eTailers and enterprises.

If you fit the description, come and join us at the Fable in Holborn on Tuesday 18th March (18:00-21:00). Hopefully see you there.